


and we've always been lost

by apatternedfever



Series: As Our Stories Recall [Fed!Georgia and Deadline!Shaun] [2]
Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: Alternate Universe, Building A Home, Cross-universe relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fed, Fed!Georgia/Canon!Shaun, Imagine your own multiversal meeting place, Shared Universe, multiversal crossover but Newsflesh is the important one, universe-hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatternedfever/pseuds/apatternedfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaun's got George again, if not back, but staying in a world that's meant to be an in-between is going to drive them both crazy. Five universes where Shaun and Georgia tried to settle down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and we've always been lost

**Author's Note:**

> Background info: in Your Multiversal Meeting Spot Of Choice, the Georgia from Fed ran into the Shaun from the gap between Feed and Deadline before she could commit suicide and he could get enough info to chase down the conspiracy. They ran away from their respective universes together.
> 
> Written for a prompt by my partner, who is wonderful and encourages me to write heartwrenching universes.

**0\. Somewhere Inbetween**

They can't stay here. Shaun knows that, even as, after the first couple of days of alternately clinging and believing themselves insane, they find something resembling equilibrium. They can't go home; that's not even an option. He doesn't know if they'd go back to the same place, and he won't, he _can't_ send George back to a world without him. He doesn't really want the messy job of explaining why he suddenly has a living, breathing Georgia Mason with him again, either -- or why she has a living, breathing Shaun Mason, if they went back to her world.

He doesn't really care. Fuck his world. Fuck both of their worlds. Fuck the zombies and the CDC and the conspiracy theories that made them both only children, halves of a whole. Fuck the van that hasn't really felt right since Buffy wasn't there to find a completely new, even less sensible, even more awesome way of wiring it; their conjoined rooms at home that make it feel like Georgia is just on the other side of the door no matter how many days pass; the dropping viewership at After the End Times, as the scandal dies down and the numbers return to normal.

He doesn't care. Georgia is all that matters. And as long as they're here, neither of them is ever going to stop wondering if they're crazy. Neither of them is going to be able to really believe that they've gotten this -- not back, because it's not the same, not exactly, but this second chance. This lifeline.

So they go.

 

**i.**

"You sure do know how to pick 'em, George," Shaun had teased at first, when he saw where they'd be staying. George had just rolled her eyes, visible now in the lighting carefully set up not to hurt them. He took that as a good sign. It was something normal for them.

And that's the problem with the world that they set themselves up in, isn't it? Nothing's normal. It's weird and unsafe and zombieless. Pre-Rising. Maybe a world the Rising would never happen in, Shaun doesn't know -- although he could probably ask George's friend with the numerous contacts and the deep pockets, not that they see him much. 

Pre-Rising, and neither of them know how to live in it.

So they pack their meager bags, after two weeks of trying to fit in and failing to manage. Say thank you and goodbye to Mr. Holmes and the very nice apartment he set them up in, and go back to try another door, another world. Another fresh start.

 

**ii.**

"Buffy would have loved this," Shaun mentions as he leans back against the side of the ship, staring up at the sky. The sounds of other spaceships ( _spaceships!_ ) docking around them rings loud in his ears, making him shout to be heard, even though George is settled warm against his side, sandwiching him between her and the metal at his back.

"I know," George says. And that right there is the problem, in a nutshell. Because this is, literally, something out of Buffy's biggest fantasies. Stepping into a world she's forced them to watch play out on screen time and time again. It doesn't feel any more real than being between the worlds did. It doesn't feel right, to see this without her.

Sometimes he wonders if they could find her, if they went back to that in-between place and waited long enough. But then again, though he always watches, he never sees his George, the one buried in the ground so many worlds away. And he knows Georgia keeps an eye out, but the ghost of the boy she grew up with never seems to have showed up either. So maybe the dead don't come back. Maybe just the left behind can find their way.

He doesn't want to wait around long enough to find out, anyway.

"Time to start opening doors again, huh?" he asks with a practiced smile, turning to look down at her.

"Guess so."

 

**iii.**

They last two days in 2015, in a world that maybe, twenty-four years later, one of them will lose their whole world in. They don't talk about it when they go back; just hold each other tight enough to bruise, tight enough that they can't breathe, and don't let go for days after.

 

**iv.**

The Sanctuary is warm and welcoming and at least there are things to do. Things to shoot, even, which gives Shaun an outlet that he didn't realize how sorely he needed. It takes a week before George starts to chafe, and he gives her two days before he asks why.

"They're hiding," she says, staring into her can like it holds all the answers, like she doesn't want to be saying this. "You go outside and hardly anybody knows they're here. It's -- I don't like all the secrets."

"It's for everyone's good," he tries, even knowing that it won't do any good. Knowing that Georgia -- the one he grew up with, the one left to him by a boy who never meant to leave her alone, one in any world he can imagine that has her -- would never accept that ignorance could be better than truth, and especially not on the word of one woman, knowledgeable as Doctor Magnus seems to be. "People wouldn't know how to deal with it."

"How can anyone deal with it when they don't get a chance to try?" she asks fiercely, and Shaun just nods, wondering where to go now.

 

**v.**

At first, Shaun thinks this is going to be it. Even before they get there, when he's just talking to Agents, working out arrangements, it's perfect. Weird shit all around, and it's not some giant secret, it's headline news -- George won't have to be pissed off, and she can work on uncovering the secrets that are bound to be there wherever governments exist, if she wants. She can bring serious, respectable blogging to a new world, or something like that, anyway. And Shaun -- well, SHIELD offers him a position where he gets to shoot things and show off for a camera. He doesn't even care what job title they put on their paperwork; they're giving him a chance to be an Irwin, with George at his side. Pre-Rising -- but they get resources to learn how to live with that. It's perfect, he's sure of it.

And for the settling-in period and almost a month afterward, it is. Until George starts uncovering things they don't want her to, and refuses to stay silent. Until she logs in one day to find her blog deleted, after ignoring numerous requests, demands, and threats to stop doing anything she hasn't been told to.

"We could stay," Shaun suggests as they curl up in bed together, trying to figure out the best way to deal with it. "We could try and take them down. Make it all public."

"Conspiracy theories, again?" George asks. It's light when she says it, and it takes a second for the real meaning of it to sink in, the truth of what happened last time they went after something this big.

He laces his fingers through hers, and wonders if this is how they'll spend the rest of their lives. Jumping between worlds, looking for a new home, trying to find a balance between interesting enough to keep them busy, and not so interesting they're at risk of repeating history. If this is the best they can hope for.

Well. Better than being an only child.

"Back to the drawing board it is," he says, and kisses her.

It's all the home he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> Universe listing, in case the snippets aren't clear enough:  
> i. Sherlock (BBC)  
> ii. Firefly  
> iii. Newsflesh during the Rising  
> iv. Sanctuary  
> v. Marvel Cinematic Universe


End file.
